Untold Arsenal: Supporting the club, the manager and the team
"I believe the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art." A Wenger
By Bulldog Drummond. The early news is that David Luiz is obviously available having taken a two match ban and we know that Cedric Soares is fit. Tierney seems to be ok, but Torreira isn’t match fit. Leno, Chambers, Pablo Mari and Gabriel Martinelli are all out for the rest of the season. What psychological …
Read More “Sheffield United v Arsenal; FA Cup 5, but no replay if it’s a draw.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone It is many of long month since I have ventured towards the Toppled Bollard public house – denizen of the dead beat deadwood and the basically dead, who act as so-called “football journalists” to the world at large. But called upon to show my nephew Percy Passage from ‘tup norf (ie …
Read More “As the curfew is lifted, the Toppled Bollard centre for creative writing, re-opens”
By Tony Attwood Of course one can’t begrudge Liverpool fans from having their celebrations for the last couple of nights. True, they might have spread the virus somewhat, but it will only be between themselves, and those people all chose to gather in a group after the club celebrated their thirty year trip to win …
Read More “So just how long will it take Liverpool to catch up with Arsenal?”
By Tony Attwood “‘An absolute mess’: Inside Arsenal, a ‘dysfunctional’ club desperate for a reset.” So reads the headline to an article in the Independent website. And it continues, “The very structure of the club is in question with problems mounting for head coach Mikel Arteta as he bids to return them to where they …
Read More “Is Arsenal a dysfunctional club as Mislintat suggests?”
By Tony Attwood You may recall the hatred piled upon David Luiz because of two errors that led to goals. And the view expressed that it showed how awful Arsenal were not only in taking him on but also playing him. But if you read English blogs and newspaper columns you might have read that …
Read More “Player errors that lead to a goal; it is not quite what you might expect”
By Bulldog Drummond As you may expect our record against Southampton across the years is not bad, but we did have a bit of a blip in 2014 to 2016 losing four out of seven games. Date Game Res Score Competition 23 Sep 2014 Arsenal v Southampton L 1-2 League Cup 03 Dec 2014 Arsenal …
Read More “Southampton v Arsenal: things are not looking so good.”
By Bulldog Drummond These are not the best of times for Southampton at home or Arsenal away. Indeed in terms of Southampton at home we are looking at the bottom of the league. Club P W D L F A GD Pts 16 Aston Villa 15 5 3 7 19 26 -7 18 17 AFC Bournemouth …
By Tony Attwood As I tried to show in the last article, the media is being incredibly selective in its reporting of what seem to me to be the key footballing issues of the day. My article on this issue (When it comes to Arsenal we are being totally misled) is of course still on …
Read More “How Arsenal can tackle football’s Ministry of Truth and get back to the Champs League”
By Tony Attwood Just imagine for a moment that you were a football journalist and there were several issues in football that it was simply not done to talk about. And by “not done” I don’t mean that you were told not to present articles on these subjects, but rather it was just taken as …
Read More “When it comes to Arsenal we are being totally misled”
By Tony Attwood Aside from running Untold Arsenal, I also run a non-football blog – Untold Dylan – which (as you might guess) covers the music and writings of the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Normally I keep the central topic of Untold Arsenal and Untold Dylan separate without much difficulty. One is about a north London …
by Tony Attwood It might seem a long time ago, but there was a time when every week – often several times a week – when we were told that Arsenal got more injuries than any other team. Indeed more than that, we were told that Arsenal’s injuries were self-inflicted, caused by the prehistoric training …
Read More “Arsenal back at the top of the injury list. But why?”
by Tony Attwood Imagine a criminal justice system in which people who commit a crime get a wrap over the knuckles but get to keep the benefits of their crime. We might think that is not much of a system, because in the end the crime is rewarded. But it seems to be what is …
Read More “Now we can see exactly what a club must do to win the Premier League”
By Tony Attwood And so it has begun. The Express is running a story in which it talks about the need to get rid of Mikel Arteta as manager. This might seem a bit early to run, but as is often noted by criminologists that crimes tend to be committed by people who regularly commit …
Read More “What is it that the recent serial League winners in England have in common?”
By Tony Attwood For reasons which have never quite become clear to me I receive notifications from an app known as AFC live on my phone. And being the sort of service it is, immediately upon the conclusion of the Brighton v Arsenal game the arguing started among other subscribers about what should be done. …
Read More “If Arsenal want to win the League they should break the financial fair play rules”
By Tony Attwood Changing the manager rarely works at Arsenal Nothing is ever certain in football, and there certainly is no way to guarantee success, but it does appear that having an expectation of an immediate upturn in form following the appointment of a new manager (at Arsenal or any other club), is generally going …
Read More “What can Arsenal realistically expect from Arteta’s first season?”
By Bulldog Drummond According to the Daily Mail, the PGMO is “baffled by the explanation from Hawk-Eye after their technology failed to spot a ball going over the line in the recent Sheffield United game. However the claim is that the technology did not malfunction. Hawk-Eye said the Goal Decision System’s seven cameras were obscured …
by Bulldog Drummond Brighton have been on a very poor run since the start of the year, and although they might have been expected to lose to Chelsea, a home cup defeat to Sheffield Wednesday, and home draws with Aston Villa and Watford show a decline in confidence as well as form. Date Game Res …
Read More “Brighton v Arsenal: what past results and form tell us about this afternoon”
By Tony Attwood The headline in the Daily Mail announces, “Saudi Arabia should have no role in the future of UK sport’: Newcastle’s proposed £300m takeover must be BLOCKED, MP tells government over breaches of international piracy laws.” Maybe so, maybe not. But whatever happened to an MP saying, “England should have no role to …
Read More “MP stance on football should fill us all with disgust”
The Slavery Files Sepp Blatter hit with new corruption charges as Fifa condone slave labour If all lives matter, if slavery is unacceptable, what is the FA doing about Qatar? Uefa has suggested that the transfer window should close on October 5 and not at the end of August as planned, because of the coronavirus …
Read More “Transfer chart reaches 110 played tipped to be coming to Arsenal!”
by Tony Attwood One of the main effects of football commentary on radio, TV and in newspapers has been to make football seem simple. Anyone can see at once what is wrong and how it needs to be put right. And everyone can – except the manager. As a result of this view, every mistake …
Read More “Will any player ever want to sign for Arsenal after headlines like this?”
By Tony Attwood A story which has appeared in the New York Times, and many other publications is saying that a trusted adviser to the owner of Manchester City is a key person in discussions relating to the take over of Newcastle United by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Now Manchester City is involved as …
Read More “Who is suing whom over the Newcastle / Saudi affair? Answer: everyone”
By Tony Attwood It is strange how the discussions that go on in the media in Europe can be so very different from those in England. For example, at the moment there is a discussion going on about the morality of asking players to have their salaries cut during the current crisis. Into this debate …
Read More “The transfer paradox: how expert knowledge in football became worthless”
By Tony Attwood Last night I saw a comment saying that Arsenal would not get anywhere under the Kroenke ownership because the Kroenke’s would not spend any money. My immediate reaction to this was that it was quite untrue, and that the current owners had in fact exceeded expectations (or certainly my expectations) in terms …
Read More “Just how wasteful has Arsenal’s transfer policy been? Here’s the answer.”
The starting line up was as below but we made two changes during the first half… Leno Bellerin Mustafi Mari Tierney Xhaka Guendouzi Willock Abuameyang Nketiah Saka No one predicted that! So with Now TV not giving me what they tell me I have paid for I move over to Arsenal TV and what …
Read More “Not a very good first half. Thank goodness for Leno – it could have been worse”
By Bulldog Drummond Additional note: Thought I would watch it on Now TV with a day pass. £9.99. Clicked on the link on their site, credit card at the ready, and what do I get? Oops something went wrong Sorry, something went wrong at our end, please refresh this page to continue. Glad to see …
Read More “Team Predictions for Man City v Arsenal, recent form and a Newcastle bid”
